Exercise 11B, page 3 - English File Studetn's book, pre-intermediate, Oxford

3 LISTENING & SPEAKING

a Look at the photos. What style of jeans do you usually buy? What colour? Do you sometimes have problems finding the right ones?

JEANS: STYLE & FIT

ripped bootcut straight skinny boyfriend

b 11.14 Listen to a talk called Is too much choice making us unhappy? Does the speaker think the answer is yes or no?

c Listen again. What are the five main points in the talk? Choose a, b, or c.

1 Nowadays, it is ___ to buy jeans than in the past because there is so much choice.

a easier b more difficult c more fun

2 One of the examples the speaker gives of where we have a lot of choice today is ___.

a buying coffee in supermarkets b choosing which airline to travel with c finding a boyfriend or girlfriend

3 Research has shown that when we have a lot of choice we often ___.

a worry that we've chosen the wrong thing b can't decide what to buy c buy more than we really need

4 In another study, about jams, Professor Lepper found that people were happier when they had ___ jams to choose from than when they had 24.

a sixteen b six c sixty

5 Professor Lepper suggests that when we go shopping we should ___.

a do research in advance b look at all the options carefully c relax and choose quickly

d In your country is there a lot of choice in the following? Do you think it's a good or bad thing?

1 in supermarkets

2 on TV

3 in clothes shops

4 in coffee shops

5 in restaurants

11.14

Buying jeans isn't as easy as it used to be. Years ago there was only one kind of jeans – probably Levis. Nowadays, there are hundreds – different styles, different colours, different lengths, with buttons, with zips. There are so many options that you feel the perfect pair must be waiting for you somewhere...

And it isn't just jeans. In big supermarkets we have to choose between thousands of products – my local supermarket has 35 different kinds of milk! When we're buying clothes or electrical gadgets, ordering a coffee in a cafe, looking for a hotel on a travel website, deciding which TV channel to watch, or even choosing a future partner on a dating website, we constantly have to choose from hundreds of possibilities.

People often think that being able to choose from a lot of options is a good thing.

However, university researchers have discovered that too much choice is making us feel unhappy and dissatisfied. The problem is that we have so many options that we get stressed every time we have to make a decision, because we're worried about making the wrong one. Then when we choose one thing we feel bad because we think we are missing other opportunities, and this makes us dissatisfied with what we've chosen.

Research also shows that we feel happier when we have less choice. In a study, Professor Mark Lepper at Stanford University found that people who tried six kinds of jam and then chose one felt happier with their choice than those who were offered 24 jams to taste.

But if all this choice is bad for us, what can we do about it? Professor Lepper suggests that we should try to relax when we have to decide what to buy. 'Don't take these choices too seriously or it will become stressful,' he says. 'If you pick a sofa from IKEA in 30 seconds, you'll feel better than if you spend hours researching sofas – because you won't know what you're missing.'